What did Democrats do wrong?

[Emily's Cat]

Funny how much pain is necessary when you aren't the one feeling it.

Do you even bother trying to read?

 

[Donal]

Yes, I missed the part where you give up anything. Having extra work to do is preferable to unemployment.

It's like the billionaires telling us about how we'll have to "go through some pain" for the foreseeable future. These are people's lives we're talking about. And these ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ will burn down the country if we want them to pay an extra dollar in taxes. But they want you and me to miss out on retirement or maybe skip our medication for...what exactly? their financial benefit?

If that's the hill you want to die on, go right ahead. But if you think you're bringing my family with you, you're in for a rude ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ awakening.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes, I missed the part where you give up anything. Having extra work to do is preferable to unemployment.

1) I'm not about to give you an itemized list of what I'm sacrificing. I will say it's ridiculous of you to assume I'm not giving anything up at all.

2) "Just work more, it's better than being unemployed" is a pretty hard-core right-wing view.

3) If memory serves... you've also previously opined that the US should eliminate private health insurance completely and make it all universal health care. Is my recollection accurate?

 

[Donal]

1) I'm not about to give you an itemized list of what I'm sacrificing. I will say it's ridiculous of you to assume I'm not giving anything up at all.

Aww, are they not getting the gourmet coffee in the office?

2) "Just work more, it's better than being unemployed" is a pretty hard-core right-wing view.

Not what I said. I said its preferable to being unemployed, which is what is happening to others for the sake of "efficiency". I wonder what your opinion would be if you were on the other side of the equation.

3) If memory serves... you've also previously opined that the US should eliminate private health insurance completely and make it all universal health care. Is my recollection accurate?

Ya, go ahead and try that path.

 

[johnny karate]

And when you need your house rebuilt because of termite infestation, you leave everything in place and just dust and vacuum, right?

You haven’t made a case that there is termite infestation in my house. You just keep baselessly insisting that there is one.

 

[johnny karate]

I'd rather have it done imperfectly than not done at all. And frankly, nobody else was going to do it. Nobody else was trying to do it. Nobody else was even saying they would.

It's not being done "imperfectly". It's being done stupidly, recklessly, and with maximum pain for as many people as possible. You've made no legitimate case for why it needs to be done at all, let alone this way, other than you like it.

 

[thaiboxerken]

And, like most of the MAGA, he didn't know he liked this until Trump and Musk told them to.

 

[dirtywick]

Ok. You say effective auditors and all are already in place. Does that mean that you literally think... the US Government... is running about as efficiently as it can?

of course not. but perhaps much more efficiently than anyone thought. after all, they didn’t find all the fraud and waste. there’d be mountains of evidence by now if it was nearly as bad as the right wingers have been saying for years

edit

and if it’s not obvious, because this happens every time, the fraud and waste is in all the right wing pork barrel projects and the defense projects and so on. not the understaffed, shoe string budget social spending projects they’re going after.

but, this is the way of the world. complain about problems they create so they have something to complain about, then blame the left.

 

[esquel]

Musk and Trump are going at cuts as if the U.S. government were a business. However, it appears that they are tackling it like a hedge fund taking over a viable company, selling off the good parts, and loading the remnants with debt so that it eventually goes into bankruptcy, firing employees as it goes. Their changes are arbitrary and non-transparent, and the 'plan' doesn't exist, aside from a desire to make chaos that they can feed from.

The government is not and should not be run like a business. The government's job is to tackle the things that are useful to the public but private enterprise rarely does without immediate benefit, like infrastructure and public safety. It taxes people to bring this about. Sometimes we get long term benefits from the programs, like the WPA building Hoover Dam.

 

[johnny karate]

of course not. but perhaps much more efficiently than anyone thought. after all, they didn’t find all the fraud and waste. there’d be mountains of evidence by now if it was nearly as bad as the right wingers have been saying for years

edit

and if it’s not obvious, because this happens every time, the fraud and waste is in all the right wing pork barrel projects and the defense projects and so on. not the understaffed, shoe string budget social spending projects they’re going after.

but, this is the way of the world. complain about problems they create so they have something to complain about, then blame the left.

Making government more efficient is laudable goal that most people would be on board with. Having a bunch of unaccountable lunatics burn everything down isn't how you achieve that goal.

 

[Thermal]

of course not. but perhaps much more efficiently than anyone thought. after all, they didn’t find all the fraud and waste.

I don't see how they would have even begun to evaluate whether they had or not. The Federal Government is a behemoth. You ain't finding out nothing in a month. You would still be trying to figure out the paperwork chain of commands, especially considering his army of minions had dead zero prep on this. It'll be goddamn years till anyone determines anything. All they did so far is slash and burn, and we are stil here.

 

[dirtywick]

I don't see how they would have even begun to evaluate whether they had or not. The Federal Government is a behemoth. You ain't finding out nothing in a month. You would still be trying to figure out the paperwork chain of commands, especially considering his army of minions had dead zero prep on this. It'll be goddamn years till anyone determines anything. All they did so far is slash and burn, and we are stil here.

it’s so inefficient it would take too long to figure out how inefficient it is.

imo the simple fact is it won’t be years before anyone determines anything because they’re not even looking

 

[theprestige]

One thing the Democrats did wrong was underestimate the current public appetite for slash and burn of the federal government.

And let's be honest: The Dems were never ever going to run on a platform of careful and thorough audit of waste and corruption and downsizing of the federal government. So all these protestations of how it has to be done in the right way just sound like scumbags crying about how their bags of scum are being metaphor something something you get the point. Scumbags.

 

[Thermal]

it’s so inefficient it would take too long to figure out how inefficient it is.

imo the simple fact is it won’t be years before anyone determines anything because they’re not even looking

We'll find out. Say the Muskrat toots his horn about saving $3t out of annual spending, and has the receipts. Sounds good (although lives were certainly wrecked in the process). But then two years down the line the damage starts showing up, since a lot of spending is playing the long game. Then we find that to stopgap and fix the problems will cost $2t, and by the time they are actually done in a few years, it ended up being $3.5 to fix. That's kind of how I see it playing out. We won't know the damages till likely in the next Democrat administration, and the Republicans will surely blame them for it.

 

[Thermal]

One thing the Democrats did wrong was underestimate the current public appetite for slash and burn of the federal government.

And let's be honest: The Dems were never ever going to run on a platform of careful and thorough audit of waste and corruption and downsizing of the federal government. So all these protestations of how it has to be done in the right way just sound like scumbags crying about how their bags of scum are being metaphor something something you get the point. Scumbags.

Pretty poetic wrap up on that bad boy.

 

[theprestige]

Pretty poetic wrap up on that bad boy.

That's what I get for elevating the lede.

 

[johnny karate]

One thing the Democrats did wrong was underestimate the current public appetite for slash and burn of the federal government.

And let's be honest: The Dems were never ever going to run on a platform of careful and thorough audit of waste and corruption and downsizing of the federal government. So all these protestations of how it has to be done in the right way just sound like scumbags crying about how their bags of scum are being metaphor something something you get the point. Scumbags.

What appetite?

Also, even if "Dems were never ever going to run on a platform of careful and thorough audit of waste and corruption and downsizing of the federal government", that option was very much available to Republicans. So all this "It's the only way to do it" apologism just sounds like rationalizing by sociopaths who want to see pain inflicted on their perceived enemies.

 

[johnny karate]

We'll find out. Say the Muskrat toots his horn about saving $3t out of annual spending, and has the receipts. Sounds good (although lives were certainly wrecked in the process). But then two years down the line the damage starts showing up, since a lot of spending is playing the long game. Then we find that to stopgap and fix the problems will cost $2t, and by the time they are actually done in a few years, it ended up being $3.5 to fix. That's kind of how I see it playing out. We won't know the damages till likely in the next Democrat administration, and the Republicans will surely blame them for it.

Not sure where you're getting that $3 trillion in savings figure.

DOGE says it's saved $105 billion, though it's backtracked on some of its earlier claims

The website of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency provided its third weekly update of federal government cost-cutting Sunday night, claiming total government savings of $105 billion, up from the $65 billion it claimed in last week's update -- but the figure remains unverifiable as the site still says it's posted only a fraction of the receipts supporting this total.

In its latest update to its "Savings" page, DOGE continued to update -- and in some cases delete -- contracts that it had previously listed as having saved up to billions of dollars in federal funds, after media outlets, experts and others publicly questioned details of the contracts.

In all, DOGE listed a total of 2,334 canceled contracts on its latest "Wall of Receipts," with the savings from those contracts amounting to $8.8 billion.

Everything from the alleged fraud and waste they are finding to the money they are saving relies on believing the word of grifters and criminals.

 

[arthwollipot]

Making government more efficient is laudable goal that most people would be on board with. Having a bunch of unaccountable lunatics burn everything down isn't how you achieve that goal.

It is, however, a pretty good way to make government so dysfunctional that the President has to declare a State of Emergency and take personal control over it.

 

[Hercules56]

One thing the Democrats did wrong was underestimate the current public appetite for slash and burn of the federal government.

And let's be honest: The Dems were never ever going to run on a platform of careful and thorough audit of waste and corruption and downsizing of the federal government. So all these protestations of how it has to be done in the right way just sound like scumbags crying about how their bags of scum are being metaphor something something you get the point. Scumbags.

MAGA considers any aid or govt program with a progressive or liberal bent to be "fraud".